Thursday, November 20, 2008

We enter the season of frenzied consumption with our economy in its worst condition in more than a generation. This means we won’t be able to celebrate Jesus , Chanukah or the Solstice by recklessly spending money we never really had . Private sector credit and employment are declining as fast as the public sector burdens of a bankrupt system are soaring. What was deified as globalization - humanity’s forced worship at the market church of the profit - has revealed itself as the faster deterioration of nature and people, reduced to commodities by the plunder, waste and devastation of capitalism.

The least popular president in history will soon be replaced by an at least momentarily most popular realization of symbolic hope. Our ugly history of slavery and racism justify some genuine celebration for the election of Obama. Symbols are important for what they represent, but you can't eat a symbol of a meal, or live in the symbol of a house. A symbol won't do much for solving the problem of a system that both the outgoing dim bulb and the incoming bright light believe is god’s gift to the world. The new CEO is smarter than the old one, but the company is still in the same business, and our problem is the business, not simply the boss.

So maybe without maximum credit and with only minimal cash, we will reach out to one another with love instead of commodities and make this an actual season of peace, joy, caring and sharing? Hope for the best, but always be prepared for the worst. This economy depends on us spending money we don’t have, on things we don't need, often for people we don't even like. While such contradictions are the core of the system , without that seasonal madness we will see even more unemployment , debt and hardship. What’s a nation to do?

Creating change we can believe in would be nice, but when we really need change in substance , what we’re likely to get is change in style .

We’re apt to see a return of primitive social democratic policies which existed before the regression to uncontrolled free marketeering. There will be money for infrastructure repair, perhaps another rebate to send us out shopping, and help for states and municipalities faced with severe cuts in support of those who need the most and always get the least. But what we require is a massive program for public works that creates full employment, environmental sensibility, and guarantees health care and education for all by spending trillions more than we have already squandered on finance capital and its imperial wars. In other words, spending to benefit the people and the country, not the people’s leaders and the country’s owners.

According to grade school civics, we are all the democratic leaders and owners of the nation, but it’s time to stop mouthing childishly empty words as though rote repetition was reality, and begin acting as adults in a real democracy by physically creating that reality.

Where would we get those trillions of dollars? From the same place we get them now, except that instead of spending them on waste, war and welfare for the wealthy, they’d be spent on saving America, and helping save the world . The last time we faced a Great Depression, as it was called, programs were introduced that made life better for many who were suffering, but they were a “New Deal” primarily created to save the political economy for capitalism. We have reached a point at which it is necessary to create programs to save the nation , humanity and the planet from capitalism . That means transforming our nation into something it has never been : a society that banishes inequality by practicing political economics that serve all of its citizens, not just some of them. We can invent a label for that democratic solution when we have it, but right now it’s important to understand that our problem is the global corporation of capitalism , and not the sex , race or religion of its CEO.

We’re likely to see domestic policy changes that will be helpful in the short term , as reactionary economics is replaced by a less fanatic tendency that doesn’t rely on totally uncontrolled market forces. But however secular it may seem by comparison to the previous holy war conducted against commoners on behalf of the rich, foreign policy will be handled by the same people who have been working to perpetuate America’s imperial domain . That global order is as near collapse as the domestic financial system, but attempts will be made to maintain America’s rule, which is plainly failing though our leadership still doesn’t seem to understand. Rather than wait for them to find out, it is for us to intervene, in truly democratic fashion, and demand action to turn this system around before it destroys not only our society, but a good part of nature and the rest of the world as well.

Obama has been praised for expressing a desire to speak with our supposed adversaries, in contrast to the belligerent idiocy of the previous CEO. But masters spoke to their slaves, all the time, and that did not change their relationship one bit. We need to not only talk, but act to end our false notion of superiority over others, the ridiculous idea that we are a chosen people by virtue of national wealth and military power, and that the world must bow to our superiority. It will take a social movement larger and more focused than the one that got him elected to affect such a change in American policy towards the more than six billion people of the planet. And we will need such a movement to transform our political economy at home to one of real equality, in order to help create that just and peaceful world.

Copyright (c) 2008 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.

This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that the author is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the author

Monday, November 10, 2008

The conflict between Joe Six-Pack and Two-Buck Chuck was resolved after the longest , most expensive presidential campaign in history. Consumers of budget beer and cheap wine were set against one another by the owners of both the brewery and the winery. Imaginary divisions have once again been used to keep manual and mental workers from noticing that they are employed by the same people:

The wealthy they currently bail out with their tax dollars, at the risk of their own individual and social bankruptcy. A new regime has arrived, and the old system prevails. So what's new?

Symbolism may be more important than any substance Obama is thought to have. Politically, he was never more than the John Kerry of 2004 , and far less a voice of the unrepresented than the Jesse Jackson of 1984. But his affirmative action team's light and bright contrast to the other affirmative action team's dark and dim made it easy. And his impact may be greater in a world in which most people are not white, and have been furious with the white western imperial menace. If international faith, like that of the multitudes here, can be rewarded with something more than symbolism, the world will change for the better. But don't hang by your lip waiting for such change.

The professional hysterics who claimed the election would be stolen will now have to find other employment, and broadcast media will suffer declining revenue with the spending orgy of the campaign ended. But the general public may suffer the greatest loss .

Evangelicals who believe Israel was ordained by god are momentarily subdued, but zionists who see Israel as sacred homeland for europeans who believe they are semites - the way Nigerians are native to Sweden - retain control. A holder of dual Israeli-US citizenship is the new White House Chief of Staff, and the tragedy of Gaza and Palestine will likely continue, as will the warlike policy towards Iran. We can only hope the corporate rulers who know that talk is not only cheap, but more profitable than war, which kills consumers, will keep the new president from going to extremes beyond normally brutal practice.

But the american military - political juggernaut remains , and it will continue threatening movements for peace , social justice and real democracy wherever they exist , even if its style differs from the regime it replaces. So, where are we?

In a world that has spread U.S. violence to Syria and Pakistan, with plans to increase the assault on Afghanistan. Our meddling in other nations will not stop under the new regime, though it may become lower key than it was under Bush . Will that represent change? About as much as a tax payer bail out of finance capital means we've changed to socialist economics. While that belief is popular among those who think the post office is socialism and the library is communism, we will see minimal financial redistribution under another affirmative action program for capitalism .

A return to primitive social democratic policies is at hand. That means money for some things we actually need, like infrastructure repair , slight regulation of the market and a few dollars for the majority who work for a living . At least until the next breakdown in our Ponzi Scheme economy, based on Vegas principles that guarantee profits for the house owners by assuring loss for the house tenants. The economy in which people work to survive is quite real, but the gambling casino that enriches our rulers is a creation of faith based belief, as much as any theory of intelligent design or the big bang as originators of the universe. But we pay a heavy price, in the material world, for these intrigues in the immaterial.

From 1979 to 2008 the top 1% income group in the U.S.A. gained $600 billion annually , while the bottom 80 percent lost that same $600 billion. That's an average yearly gain of $500,000 at the top, while the bottom lost an average $8,000. Do we need a radical redistribution of income? Will Obama bring it about? Are you serious?

Between October 2007 and October 2008, $8.3 trillion vanished from Wall Street, which is our economic Vatican, though that Roman religious center may have more substance than the myth that serves as foundation for capital's capitol. Where did those trillions come from? Where did they go? Let's put those mind boggling numbers into some perspective:

1 trillion seconds = 32,000 years. More than 8 trillion dollars?

Personal debt in the United States was $13.8 trillion in March of 2008, while total reported income for 2007 was $12.4 trillion. If we owe more than 100% of what we make, that leaves nothing for rent, mortgage, food, clothing, health care, burgers , ballet and whatever else we need to make life wonderful, without even more borrowing. How can we survive without going into even greater debt than we've already accumulated? And credit is tightening, fast, while jobs are vanishing, even faster.

These are much bigger numbers and more serious problems than any racial symbolism or choreographed celebration can solve without radical transformation of a system that Obama is sworn to serve, not change.

Let's hope that the spirit of celebration becomes a force demanding real change, before the dream of a bright new day becomes the nightmare of a very long dark night. That fan club for an individual needs to become a movement for society, before war, unemployment and unpayable debts turn their idol into a scapegoat, and our nation into a dead zone . People need to keep the faith, by all means. But we can’t just exult over surface change and pray that it gets better. We need to organize for democratic change of substance, and work to create it, very soon.

Copyright (c) 2008 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.

This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that the author is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the author

Friday, November 7, 2008

After a seemingly eternal campaign in which Barack Obama shattered George Bush's record for gluttonous political expenditure, the U.S. has its first African American president. What it doesn't have is a president committed to a progressive agenda.

It would have been nice to have Cynthia McKinney as our first African-American president. She put Obama to shame by daring to intelligently discuss the dreadful problems the U.S. now faces, and how it might overcome them. She's got more balls than Obama and all the male members of Congress put together, but she's been run out of the House of Representatives twice by the Israel-forever fanatics, and therefore must be ignored.

Polls show the American people are much closer to Ralph Nader and McKinney in their political beliefs than they are to Obama. While the people favor a revived New Deal, Obama favors a revived U.S. Empire. His recent appointment of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff does not bode well for the "change we need." Emanuel is an Israeli agent, a dual citizen, and a fanatic Jewish supremacist who once did a stint in the Israeli Army. In 2006, he was in charge of the Democratic electoral campaigns for Congress and worked to eliminate peace candidates in favor of "realistic" war candidates. Emanuel's brand of pragmatism worries that, in a worst-case scenario, pro-peace politicians might actually eliminate funding for the Iraq war. Since a large majority of Americans have long been opposed to the war, such a policy runs the risk of establishing an actual democracy in the U.S. This is intolerable. Elites must rule, and the people must stay on the sidelines.

As dismal as the political anticlimax of this election is sure to be, it is a victory of sorts that a bi-racial man has risen to the presidency in a deeply racist country that held black people as slaves for over two centuries. But it should be cause for alarm when that bi-racial man immediately appoints a Chief of Staff who has spent his career working to preserve Israeli apartheid. The stark hypocrisy calls for at least some reflection, but we're not seeing any. The evangelistic fervor on display at Obama rallies seems more like a religious revival campaign than it does a political movement. The adoring throngs have what Korean war veterans used to call the "forty mile gaze."

It wouldn't be fair to call Obama a sellout, since he has never challenged the imperial agenda in the first place. He just doesn't believe in democracy. His brand of "change" is slightly less obnoxious than John McCain's, but it's no bargain. He has no problem with the slow genocide in Gaza, favors a stepped up war in Afghanistan, and serenely contemplates a U.S. invasion of Pakistan and nuking of Iran in the interest of "fighting terrorism." In Iraq, he says the Bush "surge" has been a success, so he wants to draw down the troop levels to free up soldiers for expanding the war in Afghanistan. This is planned disaster masquerading as pragmatism. As Malcolm X used to say, you don't plunge a knife six inches into a man's back, then withdraw it two inches and call it progress. Progress would be an end to the politics-of-force altogether. Obama isn't going to stand up for that, we can be sure.

The good news from the election is that the American people have completely repudiated the ideology of the Reagan/Bush years. The bad news is that Obama hasn't, and won't.

-----Michael K. Smith is the author of "Portraits of Empire" and "The Madness of King George (illustrations by Matt Wuerker)," both from Common Courage Press.